Seal of Approval - Part Two by Sophie Deakin
Image by Rob Pumphrey on Unsplash.
The second entry of a three-part creative non-fiction series by third-year student Sophie Deakin centred around the history, folklore and natural beauty of the Cornish fishing town of Looe.
Orange is the colour of salvation. Not the only one, of course. Yellows are good too, and so is vibrant red. But orange is the one to look for. Orange is the one you will see.
Out in the water, everything is blue. If you float on your back and look up at the sky, that’s all you can see. An indomitable hemisphere of azure stretching from one horizon to another without a cloud in sight. All around, the sea reflects this blue, surrounding you in it, smothering you in it, drowning you in it. And when blue is all you see, it is orange that will save your life.
Three little numbers, a call to the coastguard, and they will come. Out from their beds, away from their dinners, in the middle of their shifts, they will come. No holiday will hold them back: no Christmas dinner, no birthday party, no Halloween celebration. They will come when called.
I have seen them save countless lives. I have seen them zoom out to sea on their little orange boat, off to protect another soul in need. I have seen them come to the aid of drowning sailors, rescue lost kayakers, tow failing boats to safety. I have seen them search for hours and hours, through the night and day alike, for the crew of a sunken ship.
We need them.
We need the boats, the equipment, and the gear.
We need people willing to drop everything.
Because without it all, we are lost.
***
The RNLI is a charity that aims to save lives at sea all around the UK, and its Looe Branch is located near the seafront in East Looe, with a fully-functioning boathouse and a souvenir shop to raise money for the charity. The station holds one Atlantic 85-class and one D-class lifeboat, both of which are crewed and maintained by local, trained volunteers. In fact, every member of the crew, maintenance team, and fundraising committee is a volunteer.
Out of concern for safety in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the boathouse is currently closed to visitors. Before this, anyone could enter, have a tour around, and learn about the station’s history. For many years Looe used an engineless lifeboat that would have been rowed out to sea by its crew to rescue people in all weathers. There was also a time when the town had no lifeboat at all, and today the evolution of the Looe Branch can be mapped through the various surviving ex-boathouses still standing.
Edited by Tia Jade Woolcock